


eternity on pause

by shakespearespaz



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Internal Monologue, Post-Season/Series 12, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, the fam makes an appearance but they're not physically there, this is for anyone in uncertain isolation hell right now, ugh she's in so much pain here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:02:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23188936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: The Doctor struggles through her isolation after her Judoon imprisonment.(aka this is me finally acknowledging that cliffhanger, because it hits close to home right now)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62





	eternity on pause

Earth burned.

She ran through a forest as it disintegrated around her—trees, birds, all life all gone in a white hot puff of smoke and ash. The tangled web of life ended, and she nearly tripped over a cliff. She stopped herself before she tumbled off the glacier blue edge, but it did little. A loud crack rattled the air, and the entire cliff collapsed into the ocean below, the ground falling out from under her. Instead of hitting the water and being submerged in that familiar feeling of death, she found herself staring up at a starry sky.

She was paralyzed. She could only watch the stars above her crawl slowly across the sky, an eternity of pin pricks slowly shuffling along, and then one by one, fading away. The stars were gone. Only darkness stretched above her, below her, out in all directions. She was alone, so desperately, irreversibly alone.

She fell into her bed.

Her chest was impossibly tight, still frozen from fear. As she breathed she relaxed, disorientation slowly taking over from terror. She was alone, in her cell.

She’d been sleeping far too much for a Time L—her species, whatever that was. She had little else to do. She pushed herself up and to the barred window.

They hadn’t turned on the bright floodlights that indicated day yet. Beyond the floating rock of the prison, the one visible planetary body had crept into view. From her best calculations, she figured the prison was a moon, orbiting a dark and nondescript planet.

It had taken her a while to puzzle it out.

The planet and the moon were dark, with no obvious light source. There was ambient light, but it was so dull, so directionless. At first she considered the possibility of a simulation. It was just enough light to see, but not enough to give one’s spirit much hope. Seemed like it had been manufactured perfectly to create a banal, crushing existence.

But then she started tracking the stars.

They moved ever so slightly, but they still moved. After a couple weeks—or so she thought—of tracking them, the Doctor had an answer she was mostly confident in. The planet was a rogue planet. It didn’t orbit any particular star, but rather orbited around a separate gravitational point, like the center of a galaxy.

The planet didn’t belong to any system. It spun around on its axis, with its own rocky moon, around and around the mostly empty space of the universe alone.

That thought brought little comfort.

She hadn’t been able to identify the stars either. They were foreign to her, although she’d become intimately familiar with them lately. She told herself stories, made up her own constellations. That worked until it didn’t, until she reached the end of her creative energy, her overly active mind unable to focus anymore.

She’d start doing laps, talking to herself.

“So _that’s_ why I’m convinced that the extensive cave systems on the second moon of Delphos III _had_ to have been carved out by sulphuric acid. I mean, what other explanation fits with the sheer cavernous geometry and abundance of gypsum? Answer me _that._ ”

“Shut UP,” came her neighbors muffled voice through the wall.

She darted over.

“Morning, Gil!” she bellowed through the wall, “How are you today? Have the hallucinations calmed down? How about that rash?”

She could hear soft pounding, which she figured was him throwing his entire massive body weight into the wall.

“Can’t. You give a man. A moment. Of peace. Shut up!”

He trailed off into a string of untranslatable curse words.

“Good talking with you!”

She’d gotten a few more words than usual out of him. Progress.

The intrusive silence returned. She sank back down against the cold wall. Wrapping coat around her, she let her head fall back against the cool metal. She squeezed her eyes shut.

It was usually this time of their manufactured day that the need overwhelmed. Her mind was buzzing, awake and ready for adventure. Even though they’d taken her sonic, there was nothing it could affect in this limited space. Nothing changed and nothing could be changed, it was just the same, day in and out. She was never more aware of this than in the early hours of the day, when she wondered how she was going to survive another.

There was one trick they couldn’t take away from her.

She reached out with her mind, using every ounce of that trapped, fizzing energy. She scanned as far as she could, using her own desperation and loneliness to stretch her mind throughout the facility, perhaps even down to the planet, somedays even further.

The air waves were empty.

It was unlikely she could make contact with anyone without physical contact. But she still tried every day. Every day she pushed it, in the blind hope that maybe, maybe the one person whose mind was most sensitive to hers could hear it.

The chances were beyond slim, but she wanted someone to talk to, even him. She still had words that burned through her. Broadcasting them out only momentarily quelled the open wounds on her hearts.

_If you’re out there, then once in your life, listen. You’re a self-serving bastard, and I know that, but please, just this once,_ listen _. I want—I need—_

That was where she stopped. Despite eons to reflect, she still didn’t know. She wanted him obliterated just as much as she wanted him alive and whole and wanting to live.

She was interrupted by a faceless hand shoving food through the slot in the door.

The Doctor didn’t want it. She didn’t want any food, much less the greenish mush they served. She’d learned in her first week, though, that if she didn’t clear her plate, the consequences were more unsettling than the food. She thought about ignoring it, just to get someone to come in, to bring some excitement to her day, but then her stomach turned at the thought of their rough, cold hands touching her without invitation.

She’d eat it today.

Some days she devoured it as fast as possible, just to get the musty taste out of her mouth as soon as she could. Today, she would each it methodically, bite by bite, forcing it down, just to fill the time.

The first bite reminded her of Graham.

He would eat anything, but he wouldn’t eat this. He was always pushing for some rest and relaxation. She tried to imagine him in the middle of the cell, on a pool lounger, fruity drink in hand and sunglasses shading his clear eyes, telling her to relax and enjoy.

“We’re finally not dying, Doc. For _once._ Take a breather. You deserve it.”

She smiled at her invisible Graham.

As she took another bite, Ryan appeared in her mind’s eye.

“Hey grandad, come on, you know she can’t sit still for that long.” Imaginary Ryan took a seat on the floor. “It is nice not running for while. Give my muscles a rest.”

Graham chuckled.

“Yeah, Doc, sometimes it seems like running is all you know how to do.”

The Doctor swallowed, choking down her meal, suddenly trying to ignore her made-up, mind fam.

“I’d run with you forever.”

Yaz was before her, wide eyes and brilliant smile. Last time the Doctor saw her, she’d been crying. It overwhelmed, her fam staring at her with smiles and hope and love. She had not left them like that; it was wrong. She didn’t even know if they’d made it back to earth safely, if earth itself was safe. They were so far, and she was stuck here, and the yearning threatened to pull her in two.

“Are you alive?” she pleaded to them, eyes darting from chilled out Graham to cheeky Ryan to earnest, eager Yaz.

They disappeared, and she was back to that relentless baseline of _alone_.

Late afternoon was toughest. Time moved differently depending on the day. Sometimes, it seemed like she had barely eaten when the floodlights went off. Often the minutes dragged, and the limbo was that much worse. Questions flooded her mind as time—the one area she thought she had control—twisted away from her grasp.

When was she? Was she at the end of time or the beginning or somewhere in the relentless, expansive middle? What was happening beyond her tiny, grey cube floating in some distant corner of the universe? Where was her ship? Where was _she_?

And then the most persistent, most painful question: _What had she done?_

She replayed the moment over and over again in her mind, when the ornate citadel chambers cut away into the clinical white of the matrix.

A whole part of her discovered and gone, just like that.

Was all that she was now born from whatever had once filled that blank space? Was she saving planets to make up for the one she’d destroyed? The worst thoughts rattled her, made her feel like a shell of being. Had she removed entire species, civilizations from existence? They’d used her to build an entire race. The further implications made her dizzy, nauseous. She was a tool, a _weapon_.

The cold of the floor took her by surprise. The cell blurred.

She couldn’t bear the thought, but maybe that meant it was true. Maybe she deserved this endless, isolated existence.

_Your past doesn’t define you._

She whispered her own words to herself. But how could it not, when she had no future? There had to be a way she could die. She would find it, she vowed, before her eternal sentence ended. The floor was wet against her cheek. She realized it wasn’t the floor, it was her, choking out tears, all of that anxiety and fear and doubt that she normally fought with every cell in regenerated body leaking out into her lonely prison.

If she refused to move from this spot, they would have to do something to end the torture.

Or perhaps they wouldn’t. Helplessness surged, and she hated it. As she let the tears come, her cell echoed her pain back, small, hiccuping sobs bouncing off the apathetic walls.

Something else bounced back as well.

A voice.

It was distant and melodic. She caught her breath, swallowing the next tears, and listened. It was singing, she thought. She peeled herself off the floor, inch by inch, dragging herself to the window. Somewhere on this tiny moon, packed with people in isolation, someone was singing.

The Doctor leaned her head against the bars.

The song was in another language, both foreign and familiar. She thought maybe she heard others join in, but she couldn’t be sure. The calm, steady voice continued. She let it wash over her.

The floodlights turned off, loud and sudden, leaving them in the dim light once more. She’d survived another day.

She tilted her head up to look at the stars.

Her stories returned to her. Three bright stars became a wise-cracking old man, nervous but so very resilient. A small cluster was a young man, who didn’t know how brave he was. The star that burned brightest was a young woman, kind and smart and capable, the best. A small corner of the sky held no stars, just darkness, an old friend. Perhaps the stars were there, just too young for their light to reach her yet.

The sky was her tapestry, her map, her comfort. One day, she would fall back into those infinite possibilities, she had to believe that. The universe would wait for her.


End file.
